Rosie & Jim's Travel Blog

A blog of all our travels

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Hong Kong
Due to Mark’s long journey from Sydney, we had a lazy start to this morning heading out at around 1100. To keep the day from being too busy we did a brief tour of Hong Kong covering some of the things Rosie & I have already done. We started along the Kowloon peninsula viewing the Hong Kong skyline, walking the Avenue of Stars and visiting some posh hotels for prices (just for a laugh). It was about this time we decided to head across to Hong Kong island to do the Central - Mid levels escalators again. It was still fun, and this time, Monkey joined in the fun too :). Again, we followed this up with a walk through the Hong Kong Botanical and...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Hong Kong
Got up to sunshine this morning, so what better idea than to go to the beach :). We had a lie in, then headed out for breakfast, and the Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island. After a little confusion over the location of the bus station due to all the construction works going on, we found the bus we needed and moved on to Stanley on the South side of the island. This bus trip showed us/me that Hong Kong isn’t massively densely populated everywhere, just the North of the island and Kowloon really. We also passed a big hotel with a massive hole through it. Apparently this was needed for Feng Shui. On arrival in Stanley, we took a wander around Stanley Market....

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Hong Kong
This morning we decided it was time to visit Hong Kong island itself, so we jumped on the MTR to Admiralty station, picked up some breakfast and coffee and walked along the highlevel walkways to the Central area. This was where Rosie introduced me to Hong Kong’s mass of escalators. The first thing we did was to join the hoards on the mid levels escalator. This is a series of escalators that take people who live in Mid Levels down to Central in the morning and back up in the evening. This travels 135m up the Peak along 800m of escalators, travelling down from 0600 to 1000 and up from 1030 to midnight. Our next port of call was the Hong Kong Botanical Gardens, which...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Hong Kong
Yesterday we got up late (again!) and checked out just in time, after a quick lunch, we were whisked away to the airport for our final transfer flight, and our last stop, Hong Kong. We arrived in Hong Kong and it was then time for my travel guide (Rosie) to sort us out :). We picked up our Octupus cards and tickets for the Airport Express and headed into Kowloon. After struggling around the complex for a bit, we found a taxi to take us to our hotel. The hotel seemed very nice from the outside, but they had managed to screw everything up and tried charging us a lot more than we agreed to pay, and requested a HK$1000 deposit (about £80). This, however,...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Guilin
We were picked up this morning from our hotel in Yangshuo for the drive back to Guilin for a tour of the site’s around the city. The drive took us first to the Elephant Trunk Hill park. At the confluence of the two rivers around Guilin, there is a rock formation that looks a little like an elephant with its trunk dipped in the water. This is the sole purpose of the park, but the local government have added some additional statues and landscaping to the area to try to justify the exorbitant entrance prices. This was followed by a visit to Seven Star park, which was built around seven peaks that align with the Big Dipper. The park was a lot bigger than both...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Yangshuo
This morning we began the last leg of our tour of mainland China. This involved a boat trip down the Li River to see the stunning scenery of Guilin in the Guangxi province, our whole reason for coming to this part of China. We had a 40 minute drive to the docks for our 4 hour trip. We boarded the air-conditioned boat and headed off. Guilin is noted for it’s oddly shaped mountains, and it’s traditional fishing methods. The fisherman train the local cormorant population to do their fishing for them. It seems to be a fairly good, symbiotic relationship, except for the fact the bird is at a bit of a disadvantage. The fishermen tie rope around the necks of the birds to prevent...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Guilin
Since our last post, we have finished up in Shanghai, and we are now in Guilin. Time for a bit of a catch up. Our last day in Shanghai we had no tours booked, so we had a lazy morning and only headed into the city for lunch. After lunch, it was time to visit Renmin (People’s) Park/Square to see how it differed from every other Renmin Square in China. Turns out not a lot, but the museum on the south side of the park was quite an interesting structure. We then had a very enjoyable early start for our flight to Guilin. Nevermind, the flight was again due to leave on time, but there was an hours delay once we boarded the plane. The...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Shanghai
Click to enlarge It seems that while we have been away, CP Construction have expanded somewhat, opened a new office in Shanghai, and are now tearing up most of the city! That was a bit of a shock :). Anyway, today is a free day here in Shanghai, so we decided to take a tour of some of the sights. We started by walking round to the Jade Buddha Temple. This was again more of a tourist attraction than a temple, but the Jade Buddha itself (no photos) was beautiful. We then battled with a non-english speaking taxi driver to take us to Yu Yuan park. In the end we agreed on the corner of Henan Road and Renmin Road… close enough. After walking around...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Shanghai
This morning, we visited Venice… no wait a minute, we’re in China. We visited Zhou Zhuang, also known as the Venice of the East, for good reason. It is a small town of about 20,000 people surrounded by water, split into 7 islands with 49 bridges connecting them together. We entered the “village” through a tourist entry barrier, much like you get at theme parks, and were transported to a new world. The streets are very narrow with tourist shops on either side, like a market almost, but every now and then you catch a glimpse of the canals between the buildings. Then we emerged at a bridge to the next island. On the otherside the paths follow the line of the canals and the...

  |     |   China 2009   |   China, Shanghai
Today we visited Suzhou. This is a small city, of only about 6million people, about 2 hours from Shanghai. The place is famed for it’s beautiful Chinese Gardens and canals, but on approach to the town, it appears that they should be famous for wedding dress shops! Our guide informed us that this was indeed the place to buy dresses as there are in excess of 100 shops dedicated to wedding dresses and the relevant accessories! We started the day with a visit to Tiger Hill, the tomb of an emperor of the area from about 2500 years ago. After baking slowly beneath the leaning tower of Tiger Hill, we adjourned back to the car for a short trip round to the Lingering Gardens. The...